Joint Call for Papers

Social Context (SoCon) and Integrating NLP and Psychology to Study Social Interactions (NLPSI)

SoCon and NLPSI will be co-located with the 15th Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC 2026), held in Palau de Congressos de Palma, Palma de Mallorca, Spain, on 11–16 May 2026.

Workshop day: May 12, 2026
Deadline for paper submission: February 16, 2026
Website: https://socon-nlpsi.github.io
Contact: socon-nlpsi-workshop-organizers.nlproc@uni-bamberg.de

Overview
Natural Language Processing has evolved significantly, enabling the modeling of high-level aspects of human communication. Relevant topics include pragmatics, social dynamics, and the integration of social context to better understand communicative intent. The SoCon and NLPSI workshops share a focus on the social dimensions of communication, while addressing distinct challenges.

The Social Context Workshop explores how context shapes language use, seeking interdisciplinary collaboration across NLP, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, and Sociology. It aims to develop shared terminology and promote community-centered approaches as alternatives to traditional crowdsourcing.

The NLPSI Workshop focuses on psychological processes shaping human communication, including how individuals perceive, process, and produce language. It welcomes interdisciplinary work from NLP, Social Psychology, and Affective Computing, with an emphasis on large-scale studies.

This joint Call for Papers contains two tracks, SoCon and NLPSI. Authors should choose the track that best matches their contribution.

SoCon Track
"Towards Responsibly Infusing NLP with Social Context, Community Meanings, and Pragmatics Through Interdisciplinary NLP Efforts."

Topics include, but are not limited to:

Interdisciplinary methods for modeling context, integrating NLP with pragmatics and social sciences

Studying social communities and how to engage with communities of practice and speech communities

Ethical challenges in resource creation, including participatory design involving relevant communities

Explaining behaviors in social interactions through models of social attitudes shaped by backgrounds, contexts, and triggering events

Contact for SoCon track: social-context-workshop@googlegroups.com

NLPSI Track
"Bridging the gap between NLP and psychological insights to foster a deeper understanding of social interactions."

Topics include, but are not limited to:

Psychological constructs (beliefs, motives, feelings, affect, personality)

Psychological studies, especially those focused on interaction

Communication patterns such as empathy, persuasion, and conflict resolution

The role of emotions in interpersonal communication, such as emotion contagion and interpersonal emotion regulation

Contact for NLPSI track: nlpsi-workshop-organizers.nlproc@uni-bamberg.de

Submission Types

Long papers (up to 8 pages) presenting original research, from preliminary to established contributions

Short papers (up to 4 pages) presenting emerging ideas or early-stage research

Submission Guidelines
Submissions will be double-blind reviewed.
Papers must follow the LREC templates (LaTeX, Word, Open Office, Overleaf).
Page limits apply only to the main content; limitations, ethics, acknowledgements, references, and appendices do not count.
Submission via Softconf.

Authors must indicate resources used or created (data, tools, technologies, evaluation kits). ELRA encourages sharing of language resources to support reuse and replicability. Authors must follow ethical AI research policies and include an ethics statement.

Workshop Format
The workshop follows LREC’s attendance policy.
It will be a full-day hybrid event with keynotes and paper presentations (oral and lightning talks).

Important Dates
Paper submission deadline: February 16, 2026
Notification of acceptance: March 23, 2026
Camera-ready deadline: March 30, 2026
Workshop day: May 12, 2026

Organizers

SoCon
Marco Antonio Stranisci, Turin University
Soda Marem Lo, Turin University
Sabine Weber, Bamberg University
Rossana Damiano, Turin University
Simona Frenda, Heriot-Watt University
Roman Klinger, University of Bamberg
Viviana Patti, Turin University
Marteen Sap, Carnegie Mellon University
Seid Muhie Yimam, University of Hamburg

NLPSI
Aswathy Velutharambath, University of Bamberg
Sofie Labat, Ghent University
Neele Falk, University of Stuttgart
Flor Miriam Plaza-del-Arco, Bocconi University
Roman Klinger, University of Bamberg
Véronique Hoste, Ghent University
Bennett Kleinberg, Tilburg University